Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1887-01-24
TIE WORLD OF SPIRITS.
The SwcdcnborGian Theory of Mans
Place in the Future World.

church phraseology," he began, tive dis
tinguish between the world OF spirits
and the spiritual world the term 'spir-
ltual world applies to spirits everywhere,
! and includes God, angels, men and devils.
Man. as to his essential being, is a spirit.
In this natural world he is spirit in ma
terlal embodiment. After that pro-
cess which men call death,
he is the same spirit in spiritual
embodiment. The spiritual body is, in
| the present life, within the natural one.
Death is but birth. Then the spiritual
body rises out OF the material one. Most
! people think that we have now only nat
ural body, and hereafter 1t snail be
either exchanged for spiritual
one, or that the old one Will, at
the great resurrection, be changed iuto
spiritual one. For neither Of these
| theories is there a single scrlptural proof.
| On the contrary, it is expressly stated
| that there ia, not snail be, a natural
! body, and there is a spiritual body
! Thou TOOL, thou sOwest not that body
| that shall be- Flesh and blood cannot
| inherit the kingdom of heaven, neither
doth corruption inherit incorruption.'
Here we are shown that neither the Old
| body of flesh, nor that body changed into
an incorruptblo body, is the body which
| we are to live in hereafter, but a spiritual
body which now exists within us is the
resurrection body, and death is the resur-
rectiOn.
THE FUTURE WORLD
AT our dissolution" the speaker said,
1--WE enter the world Of spirits. Angels
are in heaven and are from the human
race. Every scriptural account of them
characterizes them as men This is not
mere accommodation to men, as some are
wont to say.
''The scriptures set this matter forever
at rest by the plain statement OF the
angel to John on the Isle of Patamos, Il
am OF thy brethren, one of the prophets,
and OF those who keep the saying OF this
book AngehOOd is the contamination
of the human spirit IN good and truth,
which is the life OF heaven. Devils are
also from the human race, and are con
summated characters of evil and falsty.
"NOw when men pass into the other life
at death, or what seems 10 be death, they
are neither cOnsummated characters of
good or evil. They are mixed, not wholly
one or the other. They are neither angels
nor devils. Therefore they are not pre-
pared for heaven nor he'll. Must there
not therefore be place or state for them?
They are intermediat IN state within
and could not justly be admitted TO
heaven nor he'll. Heaven is the place of
the good because they are good. He'll is
the place OF the evil because they are
evil, and those who are mixed with good
and evil must be in an intermediate
place. Between the opposites there must
be intermediates.
BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HE'LL.
That there is such a world 1s abun-
dainty proven. When the Lord came
into this world he found evil and unclean
spirits in proximity TO man, and in MANY
cases possessing them, aud the object of
His coming was to dispossess them and
cast them into hell. These spirits were
not in hell, certainly not in heaven, there
fore they were acting upon an interme-
date plane of existence, the world of
spirits. Ezekiel SAYS the spirit lifted
him up between earth and heaven.
and he say he was in the spirit when it
was done. 1t was not, therefore, in the
aerial heights that he was carried, but he
was given to see the world of spirits be-
tween heaven and hell. Zechariah makes
similar statement. The whole book OF
Revelations is a description of what
John saw in this intermediate world
lie declares that he was in the spirit,
not that he was out of the body, or away
from the earth. but that he was in state
to perceive spiritual things, and that the
things described We're in the world, ill.,
termediate or between heaven and hell,
Ia evident from what he says of them: Il
saw an angel come down from heaven
having the key OF the bOttomless pit, and
he laid hold or the dragon and cast him
into it, Heaven was above him, the pit
beneath him, and the dra gon, or that
which it symbOlized, was between
the TWO. The vision, therefore, was in
the intermediate world.
PREACHED IN HADES.
1.-THE Lord, after his crucifixIon, de-
scended into ha0es, not hell, and preached
to the spirits in prison, and VINO were
thAx NH ho, i
afOretime in the day of Noah. The apos-
tie declared in his day that David the pa
triarch had not assembled INTO the heav-
ems. He was yet in the world OF spirits
not in heaven nor hell, but intermediate.
THE world of spirits is not the sleeping
time OF souls between death and resurrec-
ton, nor is it the arena tor phautoms OF
airy notningness to display their vapory
illusions, nor yet is it purga tory, but a
world in which human beings with all
that constitutes them human, in spiritual
human form, embodied in su bstantial life,
with activities infinitely more various
than those OF men. But in your
thought of them and that world,
you must divorce the thought Of mater-
aIity in your mind. II you cannot think
OF spiritual substance and spiritual form,
IL must remain, with all its beauties and
sweetness, a vast unknown to you, but if
you are thus unable To think of them be-
cause they are not material, how can YOU
think OF and worship Gcd, who Himselfis
spirit.
GOD AS A SPIRIT.
"God is spirit. He is something, not
nothing. Man in finite degree is spirit;
he is something; he IS more than moulded
mud; more than a mental Vagary. The
world into which he is born, at death is
real, substantial, and because spirit Gre
ates motion, there must be a cOrrespou-
dent spiritual form for every Smaterial
one. the world OF matter is but an eIiigy
OF the world of spirits, and Is produced
from it as cause and effect.
the process by which the good and
evil are separated in the world of spirits,
is called judgment. BY this separation
heaven and hell are formed, from that
world, ana tue agency by which the
judgment or separation takes place Is
the Autn, aud the Lord said, i Judge no
man, the words that | speak unto you
they shall judge YOU at the
last day HIS words are truth.
He is the truth, and this is the
judgment seat before which we must all
stand livery truth we know here per.
forms judgment to its own extent. We
either follow the truth and become better
10y IL, or we reject 1t and become worse by
1t. In 4 less degree, therefore, judgment
Is now taking plaCe with MS here In tho